


A Chance Encounter

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [7]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: This is kind of long but what if Brianna goes back through the stones the first time but instead of going to when Jamie and Claire are, she goes back to when they were married in the 1740's and she meets her young parents and sees how they were together then</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chance Encounter

Brianna kept telling herself it was perfectly reasonable to be nervous as she climbed the hill and her blood began to hum. She had the vague outlines of a plan—get to Lallybroch first; they would know better where her parents would be and might help provide her with the means to get there as well as tell her _how_ they came to be there. With the stone in sight, she paused and made one last check to be sure she had everything—the purls were safely tucked away in the lining of the jacket she’d modified along with the silver bracelet Roger had given her; she didn’t dare wear anything openly, too afraid it could be stolen. Saying a final prayer that she would find them in time—that she would find them at all—Brianna stepped forward, focused all her thoughts on her mother, and placed her hands to the stone.

It was worse than she’d imagined—worse than her mother had been able to describe—but as she picked herself off the ground and scurried back from the stones, Brianna found that she had in fact survived. She was a bit wobbly and queasy but there was something about the breeze that assured her she _had_ traveled.

She stumbled a bit as she made her ways down the hill. There were crackers among her provisions—though she would have liked a bit of ginger ale to go with them—but she needed to get out of the open, find somewhere she could reliably reorient herself and recover enough to press on. Her stomach rolled a little when she spotted the small cabin— _it couldn’t be…_ Without further thought, she made her way towards it.

It _had_ to be the same one—the one her mother had mentioned when telling her and Roger the whole story. Brianna combed her mind for the details her mother had mentioned. There was a settle near the door and the cabin definitely had an abandoned and deserted feel to it as she forced the door open. She’d made her journey early in the afternoon and knew she should be on her way to Lallybroch as quickly as possible—she only had so much in her provisions and wasn’t as confident of scavenging for herself along the way as she would if her mother was with her. But it was incredibly tempting to linger in the cabin, to lie on the settle where her parents had lain and take shelter in the place where so much had happened for them, good and bad—the place where her mother had first chosen her father and then subsequently lost him.

She glanced around the sparse cottage. Perhaps it would be better to rest somewhere sheltered while she could and leave at first light—she hadn’t counted on how much traveling through the stones would rattle her and wanted to be on top of things should she happen upon anyone as she made her way. Sitting on the settle, she leaned back against the wall and let the magnitude of what she’d done overwhelm her for a moment. How long would it be until Roger realized what she’d done? What would he do when he figured it out? She prayed he would wait for her to return but also longed for him to be there with her so she wouldn’t have to go through everything on her own.

There was a commotion at the door of the cabin that sent Brianna skittering to her feet and halfway across the room. A large figure stood in the doorway but she couldn’t make him out well with the light striking him from behind.

“Oh, I’m sorry lass,” a strained voice exclaimed, backing out of the door again. “I didna… that is… I thought this croft was abandoned.”

“It is,” Brianna gasped. Having backed into the light, there was no doubt in her mind _who_ she was looking at—she’d been looking at echoes of that face in the mirror her whole life. No wonder her mother had remarked on it. But… he looked so… _young_ … and so… sad. And what was he even doing here? The notice had been in an American newspaper. No, something was horribly wrong.

“Um… this may sound like an odd question,” she began, forcing her voice to remain steady. “But… what _year_ is it?”

Sure enough, Jamie frowned at her. She feared he’d noticed the resemblance too and slipped further into the shadows of the room.

“The _year_? Did… did ye come from the fairy hill then?”

“I’m looking for my parents but… I’m afraid something might’ve… gone wrong,” she admitted while remaining careful with her words. Clearly he knew about Claire then, and where and when she came from—otherwise he’d likely have wondered whether she was drunk or daft.

“It’s 1743. Ye’re no where ye belong, then, are ye?”

  1. No, she wasn’t where she belonged—not by a long shot.



Jamie stepped into the cottage again and crossed to Brianna. She flinched away, ducking her head as best she could so he couldn’t get too good a look at her—she was too early.

“I’m Jamie… Jamie MacTavish,” he introduced himself.

Crap. She couldn’t give him her real name. She fiddled with her bracelet. “Bree. I’m Bree… Wakefield.”

“I canna say how ye might get to where ye’re looking to go,” he said with a quiet gentleness that squeezed at Brianna’s chest. “But if ye dinna want to go back up that hill alone…” He hesitated and looked away, unable to conceal the flash of pain that crossed his features. “I’ll walk up with ye. My… There may yet be… a woman there… who ye can talk with though… I dinna ken as she’s knows more about how to work those stones than ye do already.”

Mama. He was talking about Mama. And it was 1743. Mama hadn’t chosen to stay yet—she was sitting up in the circle of stones right now working through it. And Jamie thought she was already gone.

Impulsively, Brianna reached out and took his hands, startling him—starling them _both_. She gave them a sympathetic squeeze. “Thank you, but I’ll manage on my own. You stay here.”

Jamie sighed as he loosened Brianna’s grip on his hands. “Ye sound like my wife,” he remarked quietly. “If ye need anything lass, ye’ll be able to find me here.” He moved towards the settle, sitting and leaning back against the wall the way she had earlier.

Brianna had to leave the cottage to escape the sad resignation in his voice. The impulse to tell him everything—who she was, that Claire would come back, that she was on her way to find them again—was stronger than she would have expected. She was a little relieved to have that first meeting with him over—though… did it count since he had no idea who she was?

The sun was beginning to set and the sky to dim. She would need to go back to the stones in order to correct whatever it was that had drawn her to this day and time, to travel to the time she actually sought—but she couldn’t go yet. Meeting her father like that was one thing; meeting her mother… She couldn’t bear the thought of her mother looking through her, not recognizing her.

After wandering back towards the hill for a ways, she veered off the path and made for the edge of the woods, taking a more sheltered and circuitous route back towards the cabin. It would be full dark soon and she’d feel safer being closer to a true shelter, even if she had to sleep against the _outer_ walls. She made sure to avoid approaching from the side where the horse was tethered so the creature wouldn’t signal her presence but there was silence within when she pressed her ear to a chink in the wall. Figuring he must already be asleep, she soon joined him, slumbering lightly and waiting for her mother’s return.

She slept through Claire’s arrival but there was no ignoring the crash of the settle as the piece of furniture along with her parents toppled over. Brianna had tears in her eyes as she listened to the pair of them as they wept and rejoiced in each other, as her father comforted her mother while she gave over to the guilt and sorrow of her decision. It was too dark to see anything through the small chink and soon everything was quiet again—her parents asleep in each other’s embrace.

Brianna became more aware of how cold it was—stunned by just how bright the stars shone when they didn’t have to compete for attention with the electric lights of a city like Boston.

It struck her that Jamie would certainly check the area surrounding the cabin as soon as he and her mother woke in the morning and prepared to leave. It wouldn’t do for them to find her curiously curled up against the cabin. Reluctantly, she rose and circled the building until she was at the front and pointed towards Craigh na Dun once more. When her mother arrived, she’d left the flimsy door of the cabin hanging open, oblivious to all but Jamie, and it remained open.

Biting her lip and knowing she should just walk away, Brianna gave into the impulse and crept to peer through the open door, just to get a peek at the pair of them. They were lying on the floor and had Jamie’s plaid pulled over both of them, their bodies curled together. She had nothing to compare Jamie’s expression to but she’d watched her mother sleep a few times over the years but never had she looked so content and peaceful—her mother had always been a tense sleeper, waiting for the alarm to go off or a phone call to summon her to the hospital in the middle of the night. It was clear that the only thing she cared about in that moment was that the man she cared about more than anything was holding her as she held him.

The moon and stars were bright enough to illuminate the path Brianna had to take back up the hill to the standing stone. The pulsing of the stones synchronized with the pulsing of her blood as she drew closer, but this time she was ready for the unsettling sensation of it. She focused on the image of her parents asleep on the floor of the cabin and the hopeful desperation on her mother’s face the day they’d parted only a few years earlier as she had kissed her mother goodbye and watched her vanish in search of Jamie.

No, it wouldn’t have been easy to leave everything behind, to purposely travel through the stones again—knowing how bad it was. But her mother had done it for Jamie and now Brianna had a better understanding of why. Brianna was ready to meet her father properly, to tell him who she was and have him _know_ her. Concentrating on that desire and her mother’s face when they’d said goodbye, Brianna reached out and pressed her hands to the surface of the stone, confident she would emerge in the time she sought.


End file.
